Ceiling fans are very popular for facilitating air circulation in homes and businesses and different manufacturers provide ceiling fans to the public. Owing to the fact that fan blades are constructed in varying lengths, rotors are available in a variety of diameters, and the mounts are manufactured to join fan blades to specific rotors, the fan blades of one manufacturer are generally not compatible with the mounting assembly of a different manufacturer's fan. Indeed, often different models of the same manufacturer are incompatible. This makes maintenance of a ceiling fan in the event of damage difficult and often dictates replacement of the complete fan assembly.
There is therefore a need for a universal fan blade adapter which can attach a fan blade to any conventional rotor, regardless of the spacing of the attachment holes on the rotor. Universal adapters for ceiling fans are well-known in the patent literature.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,936,751 (Marshall) discloses a universal fan blade mounting assembly including an elongated bar having flanges at each end. One of the flanges is shaped to cooperate with one end of a fan blade and the other flange is constructed for attachment to a ceiling fan rotor. The rotor connecting flange includes two holes therein and one of the holes is round for encircling a fastening screw. The other hole forms an arcuate slot. The hole and slot cooperate such that the elongated bar extends outwardly from the center of the rotor such that the functional relationship between the fan blade and the rotor may be maintained.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,802,694 discloses overhead ceiling fans having easily attachable and detachable blades.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,494,682 discloses a fan assembly in which a block member is connected to a rotor end casing and an arm member having a blade connected thereto is mounted to the block member.
These patents are merely representative of universal ceiling fan assemblies and in order to obviate the need to describe features that are known per se, their complete contents are incorporated herein by reference.
In addition to replacing broken fan blades, it is also often desirable to upgrade a ceiling fan so as to provide more power by replacing, for example, a two-blade fan to a three-blade fan and so on. At least some of the above-referenced patents appear to allow for this possibility by providing discrete fan blades, each of which can be fitted into an appropriate location of the fan assembly via an intermediate mounting adapter. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,802,694 requires that separate fan blades be attached to the fan motor via respective intermediate mounting arms.
But it is known to provide ceiling fans that have multiple blades all formed as a single integral unit. In this case, it would be preferable to attach the single fan blade assembly to the motor via a single-piece adapter thus reducing the number of components in the final assembly.
It is also known to attach fan blades to a flywheel of a ceiling fan. For example, Switchco sell ceiling fan parts for different makes of ceiling fan, including blade arms, pull chain switches, capacitors, flywheels, PC boards, and wall switches. One such flywheel is reproduced herein as FIG. 1. It is seen in FIG. 1 that the flywheel has multiple holes disposed around a periphery of the flywheel for accommodating six blades. The flywheel itself is screw-mounted to the motor shaft via a central boss and screw. Other flywheels for accommodating four blades are also available as are flywheels that can accommodate either four or five blades as shown in the following table.
# ofCatalog #Shaft SizeBladesCeiling FansF1616 MM (⅝″)4Tara, Sunbeam, Patton, Homestead,Home-Pride, and Pre 1980 Casablanca -F16M16 MM (⅝″)4 or 5Tara, Sunbeam, Patton, Homestead,Home-Pride, and Pre 1980 Casablanca -F1717 MM ( 43/64″)4Homestead, Quoizel, AmericanIndustries, Old Jacksonville, Key Largo,Great American, and 985-990 Fasco -F17M17 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Homestead, Quoizel, AmericanIndustries, Old Jacksonville, Key Largo,Great American, and 985-990 Fasco -F2020 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Kenroy, North American's Park Avenue,and AmericanaF2525 MM ( 1″)4 or 5Casablanca, Home Pride, Emerson, andU.S. FanFH17 MM ( 43/64″)4Hunter 52″ Comfort Breeze, Robbines,and Myers Part No. 83067FHN17 MM ( 43/64″)4Late Model Hunters, Robbins, and MyersPart No. 83147 and 83096FH4217 MM ( 43/64″)4Hunter 42″ Comfort Breeze, Robbins,and Myers Part No. 83060.FHS617 MM ( 43/64″)6Homestead, Six Blade: This ModelFHS6/A17 MM ( 43/64″)6Homestead, Six Blade:FHS66M17 MM ( 43/64″)6Homestead, Six Blade:F174517 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Riccar, Jet King, Tacony, Litco's Sierra,and Some Gulf Coast -F1745M17 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Riccar, Jet King, Tacony, Litco's Sierra,and Some Gulf CoastF204520 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Riccar, Jet King, Tacony, and Litco'sSierraF803717 MM ( 43/64″)6Fasco Six Blade (948 & 962)F804717 MM ( 43/64″)5552, 548, 965, 960, 330, and 961 FascoFive BladeF807617 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Fasco and Others, This Flywheel HasThe Same Blade Arm Pattern As TheF25, Except It's For A 17 MM ShaftF8076M17 MM ( 43/64″)4 or 5Fasco and Others, This Flywheel HasThe Same Blade Arm Pattern As TheF25, Except It's For A 17 MM ShaftF205220 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Casablanca First Home, (988 Fasco),Concord Madison, and Sierra. Has FourHoles In The Center To Attach ToMotor + A Set ScrewF20M20 MM ( 25/32″)4 or 5Has Four Bolt Holes In The Center ToAttach Flywheel To Fan Motor + A SetScrew To Attach To Motor Shaft
So far as is known by the present Applicant, there is no known flywheel assembly that is adapted to accommodate three different types of integral fan blade assembly having respectively, 2, 3, or 4 blades.